After Sweden, the far right made a new breakthrough in Europe with Georgia Meloni’s victory in Italy’s parliamentary election on Sunday, where a neo-fascist party will have the chance to rule the country for the first time since 1945. .
After remaining in opposition in all successive governments since the 2018 legislative elections, the Fratelli d’Italia party has positioned itself as a major alternative, rising from 4.3 percent four years ago to around a quarter of the vote. Is. Rai (between 22 and 26 percent), according to Sunday’s exit poll, becoming the leading party in the country.
Meloni announced that he will head the next Italian government and said: We will govern for all Italians.
The party’s alliance with Matteo Salvini’s far-right League and Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia is expected to win up to 47 percent of the vote. With the complex game of constituencies, this alliance is supposed to secure a majority of seats in the House and the Senate.
If the results are confirmed, the Fratelli d’Italia and the union would together achieve “the highest percentage of votes recorded by far-right parties in the history of Western Europe from 1945 to the present day,” according to the Italian Election Center. Studies.
It will be a real earthquake in Italy, one of the founding countries of Europe and the third economic power in the Eurozone, as well as in the European Union, which will have to deal with a politician close to the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán.
In this context, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen noted that the EU has “tools” to punish member states that violate the rule of law and its shared values.
“Today, you can help make history,” Meloney wrote on Twitter Sunday morning. “In Europe, they are all worried about seeing Meloni in government. The holidays are over. Italy will start defending its national interests,” he said.
For his part, Matteo Salvini, head of the anti-immigrant union, told reporters as he headed to the polls that his party “will be on the winners’ podium: first or second and at worst, third.”
Salvini, who was deputy prime minister and interior minister in Giuseppe Conte’s government (2018-2019), added: “I look forward to returning from tomorrow to the government of this wonderful country.”
Meloni, a former admirer of Mussolini and his motto “God is the country, the family”, managed to accept his party as a political force and raise issues that imitated the discontent and despair of his citizens by remaining in the opposition. The parties supported the national unity government led by Mario Draghi.
Any government that emerges from the elections to assume its duties at the end of October is already facing obstacles on its way.
The country must deal with a crisis caused by soaring prices, at a time when Italy faces a debt of 150 percent of its GDP, the highest figure in the euro zone after Greece. In this context, Italy urgently needs to continue the aid distributed by the European Union in the framework of its plan for economic recovery after Covid-19, of which this country is the first beneficiary, with a great difference from other countries.
“Italy cannot afford to give up these sums of money,” historian Marc Lazar told AFP. On the other hand, it could find itself in a battle with Brussels alongside Warsaw and Budapest “on issues of defending national interests against European interests”.
Like France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Meloni eventually abandoned his project to leave the EU, but he is calling for a “revision of the rules of the stability pact”, which has been suspended due to the health crisis. The country’s budget deficit and debt ceiling are 3% and 60% of its GDP, respectively.
A native of Rome, Meloni takes a staunchly conservative stance on social issues. In June, she declared: “Yes to the normal family, no to the LGBT lobby! Yes to gender identity, no to gender ideology!”
The country’s rise to power would also result in the closure of the country’s borders, where tens of thousands of migrants arrive on its shores each year, raising concerns among NGOs that secretly help migrants crossing the sea in rickety boats to escape their misery. . Africa
Pundits have already agreed that such a coalition government, in which Meloni would face a real challenge against jittery allies such as Silvio Berlusconi or Matteo Salvini, would not last long in a country known for government instability. brought
Source: Lebanon Debate
